Ice swimming

While most of us have been bundling up this week thanks to a blast of winter-like weather, a Guelph woman put on her bathing suit and went to the beach.

Sounds nice right? Except that beach was in Oakville and it was freezing cold, but that didn’t keep Amy Ross out of the water, she’s a cold water swimmer

“Just for the fun of it, we live in Canada we heard about this ice swimming culture that is in Europe and the U.S. and we thought we’re Canadian and barely have that culture here.”

She went for a dip in Lake Ontario this morning, with the windchill it felt like -7. The water was 2 degrees with icicles already forming on the rocks.

On Remembrance Day, Amy and a friend became the first Canadian women to swim an ice mile, that’s swimming a mile in water colder than 5 degrees Celsius. Her husband spotted her on a paddle board.

There are risks involved with cold water swimming, hypothermia is just one of them.

“You have to be aware of your body, how much time you’re in the water and always swim with a buddy.”

Amy says the trick to being able to handle the frigid water is to go in for a couple of minutes at a time as the temperature drops and your body will get used to the cold.